Local acolades reward cinema's big hitters

RUSSELL CROWE and Jacki Weaver mixed with Robert De Niro, Quentin Tarantino, producer Harvey Weinstein and other Hollywood A-listers as the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts delivered its verdict on the Oscars race in Los Angeles.

At the second international awards, hosted by Crowe in Los Angeles, AACTA surprisingly gave its best film award to David O. Russell's comic drama Silver Linings Playbook, about a teacher just out of a mental institution who meets a troubled young widow.

Honoured and awarded ... Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver. Photo: Getty Images

Garry Maddox reports it beat Oscars favourite Lincoln and other best picture contenders - Argo, Les Miserables, Life of Pi and Zero Dark Thirty. Russell also won best director and Jennifer Lawrence best actress at an event that showed no favouritism to Australian talent.

The young Silver Linings Playbook star beat a strong field that included Nicole Kidman (The Paperboy), Naomi Watts (The Impossible) and Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty). Best actor went to Oscars favourite Daniel Day-Lewis, for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln, over fellow Golden Globe winner Hugh Jackman in Les Miserables.

Two ''discretionary'' awards added to the success for Silver Linings Playbook - De Niro and Weaver winning best supporting actor and actress. Just as he did at the Golden Globes, Tarantino won best screenplay for his revisionist western Django Unchained, about a slave who turns bounty hunter.

The AACTA president, Geoffrey Rush, said the awards added ''an Australian voice to international Academy discussion and celebrate our fellow Australians working internationally''. At the first international awards last year, AACTA foreshadowed the Oscar wins for The Artist as best picture, Michel Hazanavicius as best director and Jean Dujardin as best actor (both for The Artist) and Meryl Streep as best actress (The Iron Lady). The international prizes lead into the awards for Australian film and television in Sydney on Monday and Wednesday.

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O'Shane courts flak to the last

Pat O'Shane's colourful career as a Local Court magistrate seemed to end on a drab note on Friday - a Downing Centre application for costs, it was wrapped up by the tea break. But closer inspection revealed a true O'Shane special: a case involving one of the inner-city's best-connected canines, his alleged priors with some four-legged foes, Lulu and Mr Benson, and a who's who of Sydney's local political scene. Like many convoluted tales, this one began in a Darlinghurst laneway, where Oscar, a shepherd-kelpie rescue dog, allegedly bit a passer-by on the leg. More than a year later, Oscar has a barrister, Dixie Coulton - a former City of Sydney deputy mayor who was an independent candidate in last year's council election - and a rather strained relationship with O'Shane's court. Lawrence Gibbons, who owns Oscar - and a stable of local newspapers through his Alternative Media Group of Australia - describes the magistrate's courtroom conduct as ''bizarre''. Not only was Oscar's team not allowed to call any witnesses other than Gibbons, he claims O'Shane disregarded that there were conflicting council accounts of where the alleged incident occurred. ''She said that if this court had to worry about inaccuracies from police officers and council workers and threw out evidence on that basis, this court would get nothing done,'' Gibbons says, adding on another occasion O'Shane declared she was adjourning early to collect her grandkids. While the council's ''dangerous dog'' declaration was upheld after the drawn-out case, O'Shane did throw Oscar a bone: the city's application for $6000 in costs will be determined by way of an independent assessment. But unless it can be resolved otherwise, the case is destined for a Supreme Court appeal. O'Shane declined requests for interviews on her last day, and the City of Sydney would not comment about the matter. But the saga marks a definite low point in its relations with Oscar, which attended the lord mayor Clover Moore's Christmas reception with Gibbons's other pooch, Felix, in 2007. Says Gibbons: ''They are no more dangerous than anyone who wears a dog collar in this city.''

Celebs on the loose

If you are wandering about the city on Monday and spot a celebrity or two having a tanty, be not afraid, it's (most probably) just the latest batch of contestants in Nine's reality series Celebrity Apprentice getting - and reacting to - their first assignment. The series goes into production on Monday and although it'll be hard to top the manic energy of Deni Hines from last year, the producers seem hell bent on courting controversy again with a selection of public identities infamous for sticking their necks out. Nine will release the full list of contestants on Tuesday, but we know so far the group includes Olympian Stephanie Rice, who dodged a PR disaster last year after tweeting a homophobic remark; Olympian Dawn Fraser who caused in international incident when she pinched a flag during the Tokyo Games in 1964; ex-footballer Dermott Brereton, best remembered as extremely aggressive on the field; former Uncanny X-Men frontman Brian Mannix, who lists the description ''mischievous'' in his bio; and media guru Prue MacSween, who in 2010 made a public apology for using the word ''retard'' on air. Actually, forget the misbehaving celebrities, keep an eye out for the television producer sobbing quietly on the side of the road.

A small matter of ...

Election year and the thought of participatory democracy is bringing all sorts of political hopefuls out of the woodwork. This month the Australian Electoral Commission approved the registration of the Pirate Party Australia. Its main concerns appear to be copyright and patent issues. Now comes the Politically Incorrect Party. It is the brainchild of Wayne Rowley, who said political correctness was driving him mad. He wants the right to be offended and offend, for churches to pay taxes, to remove the Union Jack from the flag and to sack Queen Elizabeth. The trouble is Rowley only has a short time remaining to register with the commission. ''I already have the undying support of numerous individuals, but to make this a reality I need 500 members, and need them within two months,'' he said.

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... with a Viking invasion in Darling Harbour

THE rubber duck may have departed Sydney Harbour, but Russian Vikings have sailed in to take its place. The replica Viking ship Rusich has made the long voyage from Russia to Australia and is stopping over in Sydney to be inducted into the Australian National Maritime Museum, before it makes its way to Hobart for a boat festival. Rusich's two-year journey has not been an easy one. The 15-metre ship, which has oars and a small motor, but primarily relies on its large square sail, is vulnerable to bad weather and rough seas. On top of this, the expedition has been completed on almost no funding. Things got so dire that Captain Sergey Sinelnik put out calls for sponsorship in the Australian Wooden Boat Festival's January newsletter, and announced passengers would be accepted for the final legs - Brisbane to Sydney and Sydney to Hobart - as long as they could pay their way. To date, there have been no takers. Captain Sinelnik, the ship's bosun and first mate have been travelling with a revolving crew of volunteers. The trip has taken them more than 7000 nautical miles from Volgograd, down the coast of Africa, past Thailand and Indonesia, through the Torres Strait Islands and down Australia's east coast.

... with dishonourable mentions

AS WE bask in the glory of the Australia Day holiday, Zoo Weekly has thrown the bah, humbug on proceedings with its un-Australian dishonours list, topped by the bad boy tennis player Bernard Tomic. Zoo's editor, Shayne Bugden, says: "The bloke can be a 24-carat prat. Some of the low acts that inspired this year's hall of shame are enough to make you wish you'd been born in New Zealand. Well, almost." Bugden keeps throwing fuel on barbie, saying the summer's bushfire arsonists come in at No. 2, followed by ''God, for a string of natural disasters, including the Aussie Test loss to South Africa''. Next comes the radio presenter Yumi Stynes, for paying out Victoria Cross winner Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith. The chairman of the national cricket team selectors, John Inverarity, cops it ''for denying Michael Hussey his rightful place in the one-day international team and a farewell tour. And so it goes on, with the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, predictably in there for the carbon tax, and Gina Rinehart earning a mention for hiring foreign workers after labelling Aussies "bludgers".

... with a very costly affair

FORBES might have declared Kristen Stewart one of the most bankable stars to have in your movie last year, but director Rupert Sanders has now officially paid the price for their behind-the-scenes association. His wife, the former model Liberty Ross, has filed for divorce, TMZ reports, less than a year after Stewart and Sanders were caught cavorting while working together on Snow White and the Huntsman. The papers, lodged with the Los Angeles County Superior Court, ask for joint custody of the couple's two children. Stewart patched things up with her boyfriend and Twilight co-star, Robert Pattinson, but they are in the midst of a separation of a different kind: he is in Adelaide to film The Rover.